Volunteer army's mission: protect NH amphibians
Mar. 8—KEENE
Spotlighted in the beam of a flashlight on the asphalt road, the tiny frog looks impossibly vulnerable.
Then small hands gently scoop up the spring peeper, carrying it across the road to the safety of the wetlands beyond.
This is migration season for New Hampshire's frogs and salamanders, who leave the woodlands where they overwinter and travel to the wetlands where they'll breed and lay their eggs. And that usually means crossing a road.
It may be only a few dozen feet, but it's a perilous journey.
Before motorized vehicles, these creatures could fend for themselves. Now, thousands of amphibians die on New Hampshire roadways every year, crushed by drivers oblivious to their plight.
But at sites across the Monadnock Region, volunteer "Salamander Crossing Brigades," deployed by the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, stand between them and that fate.
The center coordinates amphibian crossing efforts at sites in Henniker, Keene, Nelson, Peterborough, Swanzey, Westmoreland, Wilton and Winchester. Trained volunteers armed with headlamps, flashlights and reflective vests step carefully along the roadways, looking for frogs and salamanders.
On a busy night, the task can get nerve-wracking, as the volunteers try not to step on the very creatures they're trying to save.
For many families, it's become a rite of spring.
Katy and David Luscombe were out on North Lincoln Street in Keene Wednesday night with their three children, Flynn, Phoebe and Lily.
"We've been doing this since our kids were little," Katy Luscombe said. "It's a great way to get outside and learn about nature."
It's 4-year-old Lily who insists the family come out on such nights, her mother said. "Every time it rains, she wants to know if we can look for frogs."
"Some of the big frogs are slimy," offered Lily.
Phoebe, 9, said her favorite part of these evenings is "finding frogs and helping them."
Flynn, their 10-year-old brother said, "I like staying up late."
Early rush hour
In Keene, North Lincoln Street is one of the busiest migration spots, as amphibians move from Robin Hood Park to the wetlands around Beaver Brook. So the city's public works department closes the road to traffic on rainy nights when the creatures are on the move, and reflective signs read: "Salamander Crossing."
Amphibians take their migration cues from nature — and some of those came extremely early this year, according to Brett Amy Thelen, science director at the Harris Center.
Without a snowpack, the ground is thawing earlier, Thelen said, and temperatures have stayed above 40 degrees some nights. Add in rain, and it's the perfect setup for what naturalists call a "big night" for amphibian migration.
That was the forecast for Keene on Wednesday night. On North Lincoln Street, where the annual migration becomes a neighborhood event, there was a happy energy in the air, part treasure hunt and part Halloween. Children called out excitedly when they spotted a tiny frog or salamander.
"If you move any critters, find someone from the Harris Center so we can put it on our forms," Thelen reminded the volunteers.
On a waterproof clipboard, Nate Marchessault, an ecologist and intern at the Harris Center, recorded the count by species as the volunteers reported in. He's a graduate student at Antioch University New England here in Keene, and this is his "dream job," he said.
A volunteer spotted a dead red eft, flattened in the road, a sad reminder of the stakes at hand. Most frogs and salamanders cross at night, Thelen said, but red efts — the juvenile stage of the eastern newt — are more likely to cross during the day when the road is still open.
The Harris Center scientists also include dead creatures in their count on a given night, Thelen said. It's sad, she said, "but it's also helpful information."
Saving lives
Sarah Wirein and her two daughters, Clara and Iris Rudy, moved to Keene six years ago and now join the crossing brigade on North Lincoln Street every year. It's within walking distance of their home, she said.
"It's exciting to have a nighttime-in-the-rain, welcome-spring, walk down there," Wirein said. "It's also really exciting for them to be a part of making their local community and their world a better place."
"It's just an awesome way to welcome spring," she said. "It's shared family time that's free and accessible and outside — and not on screens."
Her daughters feel invested in helping the frogs and salamanders get across the road, Wirein said.
Clara, 12, was thrilled to learn from Thelen that one frog she moved across the road Wednesday night was likely female, its belly round with eggs. "I just saved that mom, but also those babies," she told her mother later that night.
Her 10-year-old sister, Iris, said she loves being outdoors on rainy nights. "But I also really like animals, so it's kind of fun to help them," she said.
Two teenagers strolled down North Lincoln Street, pausing when they spotted a wood frog in the middle of the road. They weren't part of the crossing brigade, but the volunteers were all busy elsewhere.
The boys started to pass by, but one stopped and squatted down. "I'll do it," he said out loud.
He nudged the frog onto one hand, covering it with the other, and then carried the creature across the road and placed it in the wet leaves.
Nearby, another wood frog leaped quickly across the road. Clearly motivated, it needed no help from the humans.
Neighborhood resident Wirein said she and her girls meet some of the same people every spring at these gatherings. "Some people we don't even know their names, but we run into them every year," she said. "We'll bump into old friends down at the salamander crossing."
Around 7:30 p.m., the Luscombe family was heading home. They called out goodbyes to the others, promising to meet on the next rainy evening.
Down the road, the two teens were talking with Thelen, asking if it would be OK to come back and help out on another night. They're more than welcome, she told them; just bring flashlights and rain gear.
As the human voices hushed for a moment, a single peep was heard from the wetlands — the sound of success.
Amphibian invasion
A bit later in the migration season, this area will come alive with sound, Thelen said. "The peepers will be peeping, the wood frogs will be quacking," she said.
The frogs and salamanders will spend a few weeks in vernal pools before heading back across the road to the woods. "Once the females lay their eggs, they don't really need to stick around," said Thelen, but the males may stay longer to meet up with other females.
By 10 p.m. Wednesday, the Harris Center scientists recorded 263 spring peepers, 97 wood frogs, 12 newts and one red-backed salamander from the North Lincoln Street site — 373 amphibians in all. "Frogs were still streaming out of the woods when we left for the night, so I'm sure many more crossed in the overnight hours behind the safety of the barricades," Thelen said Thursday.
Spending a rainy spring night with a Salamander Crossing Brigade just might restore a person's hope for our wild creatures — and perhaps for humanity as well.
Wirein said she loves what these gatherings say about her family's adopted city. "I think it says that stewardship to the community around us — not just the human population but the plants and the animals and the wildlife — is important to our community."
—Want to help? Harris Center is hosting a virtual "Salamander Crossing Brigade" training on Thursday, March 14 at 7 p.m. The workshop trains volunteers to move migrating amphibians across roads by hand in the Monadnock Region. Register at: harriscenter.org/events/salamander-crossing-brigade-workshop-2024.
